Muhammad Reza Fauzi

120222415461

Cultural Studies Essay

In recent TV series, there are many kind of series is take their focus on the relationship between
people that can be called as family. Yet, sometimes we can find that some family in the show is not even
blood relative or any bond that in Indonesian culture that can make some people into becoming a family.
However, they really honor their so called family and even they ready to sacrifice their life for them. For
example in an American show titled Supernatural. In this show the story is about two brothers that in
struggle to solve their problem that even affects the Heaven and the Hell. For the part that they both
belong from the same family is out of the question. The question emerges when they became close to
several other characters that do not have any relation to their family. How can that be? What exactly that
classified you as a member of a family in their culture?
The recognitions of family ideology tend to be conceptualized in terms of sets of partisan beliefs
supporting a particular family form. Thus the concept of The Family is rarely regarded as being
problematic in itself; rather attention is paid to the presumed virtues or deficiencies of the particular form
of The Family which is assumed to be prevalent. Family based on the dictionary is a group consisting of
parents and children living together in a household. From the this definition, it show that even the
dictionary classified family as family is consist of that two element and it implies that family also have to
be blood related or has a legitimate bond between them (e.g. family by the law or religion). Yet in present
day not only America, in many countries, the ideology of family is shifting. More and more people started
to think that family is not about blood or relative, but it is about bond that you share.
In the old days, the belief system of the family comprises of each one of those qualities and
standards that train us on how "perfect" family life ought to be lived. Interest in a family is, in our general
public, a balanced decision issued its stature. There is first the offer of passionate security and fulfillment
not experienced somewhere else given our present social relations. Initially give us a chance to see what
the perspectives that we have to make a perfect gang. Some individuals believe that a perfect family is
make out of a mother, a father and children, living respectively, see one another, helping each other, love
and regard one another. That is the greater part of us will believe that is the criteria of a perfect crew.
Anyway what about families those don't have one of the criteria. Would regardless it be called as a perfect
gang? Yet for reasons unknown, in other society that sort of circumstance, some family really can be view
as a perfect family even they didn't have a few parts of the criteria of turning into a perfect crew. On
account of "Supernatural" their family is comprise of a gathering of individuals that originated from
diverse foundation despite everything they can be called as a perfect family in light of the fact that it is
not the perspectives that they think they have to turn into a perfect family, yet it is the way do you feel
when you with them.
Sometimes, the ideology provides a justification for the type of institution the family is seen to be
in our culture. Some of the nations in the world have already decided what it takes to be a family. In
Indonesia for example, you will be considered as a member of a family if you have bond in blood or in a
marriage as I say earlier. Yet, most of the time this ideology is 'hidden' in that it is there in our
unconscious, but not often brought to consciousness and seriously questioned. That is why for some

culture, family has no concrete meaning, because it is all a conceptual beliefs rather than a legal
recognition. The family permits the opportunity for the expression of emotional needs not legitimately
expressed elsewhere. For some reason, even though some people have already have that kind of beliefs,
the regulation of a country that still dictate their citizen to make their family acknowledgeable by their
law. Beside the government, religions are also having a big role in determine the idea of a family. Yet,
religions is failed to give their followers the liberty to decide the meaning of family, because they tend to
make the family as a small organization that can be the media to spread their teaching. I am not saying
that religion is some kind of an institution that controlling, but what I am saying is that religion has its
own view of family that sometimes is unsuitable to be used in modern society. In the Supernatural
series, there are some situations when the two brothers feel even when they were bond by blood, they still
sometimes do not feel like their family. From that example, it is clear that the show is trying to show us
that the ideology itself can be questioned.
Moreover, most of the time the ideology assumes the status of 'common sense' or what is 'natural'.
Like when there are two men having a marriage relationship (or a gay marriage for the popular term), the
ideology sees them as not a common sense or not natural. But if we look at that kind of family, they
sometimes have the quality that most of the common or normal family have. And yet, for some reason,
they still are not considered as common or normal family. In some country, they have allowed the gay
marriage in their jurisdiction. Yet most of the country in the world still does allow it because they still
bound to their old belief that makes them cannot accept such behavior. For many traditionalists, the
family is often viewed as an institution that is naturally given, and thus is automatically viewed as
socially and morally desirable, and something that you mess with at your peril. The realms of the natural
and the social are fused. The family, and the gender roles within it, is seen as a biological unit rather than
as a social arrangement. With the institution of the family, the link to nature is invoked because the family
is so closely allied to the undeniably natural process of biological reproduction. Yet eating is natural, but
we would not consider restaurants or groceries as natural. Appeals to nature are often made in resistance
to social change. But if a gay marriage, they cannot act as that kind of institution.
This is kind of perception is actually more hidden meaning that the ideology itself carry it out
throughout the century. The concept of the family dominant at the present time is a relatively recent
creation; it arose during the late 18th century, and then, as now, the ideology describes what 'ought' to be
the case and not necessarily what 'is' the case. The ideology is patriarchal, justified by reference to what is
seen as 'natural' and in part to scriptural authority. The ideology was devised by and served to mark the
middle class off from the decadence of the upper class and the immorality of the working class. With the
rise to political power of the middle class it became held up as an ideal to which all, no matter from what
class, should aspire, and indeed it became enshrined in state policies. Although this ideology has a clear
middle class pedigree it is presented as universal. It is clearly founded on authority, deference and
dependence, which are by their very nature unequal. Since it is a conservative ideology, radical
movements are seen as both a threat to the family and to have been a consequence of the crisis in the
family. But now, it is transparent that the political 'right' seeks to maintain what are argued to be both
traditional and 'right' values as regards the family. Indeed, there has been a harking back to earlier
apparent 'golden ages' of family life.
Yet, the series Supernatural itself challenge that kind of conceptual. The series tried to give that
the conceptual of family that the people can choose their own family without bounded to any

governmental or religious institution regulation. At this point, I have one question that came up in my
mind. Is there a concrete definition of what a family is? That is why I think that every culture in the world
have their own definition of how a family is, despite the fact that sometimes they have many similarities
to one another. Yet, family ideology has been a vital means of holding together and legitimating the
existing social, economic, political and gender systems. Challenging the ideology thus means challenging
the whole social system. So fears about a crisis in the family are really fears about challenges to the
system.

Refferences:
http://www.s-cool.co.uk/a-level/sociology/family-ideology/revise-it/introduction
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1985.tb00806.x/abstract
http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/ideology-politics-and-the-american-family-setting-the-agendafor-the-1990s
http://www.wwu.edu/culture/kagitcibasi.htm